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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23068519">After Midnight</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/risokura/pseuds/risokura'>risokura</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age: Inquisition</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:15:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,635</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23068519</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/risokura/pseuds/risokura</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A self deprecative twenty something who believed in righteous sacrifice. A crass orphan who cared about no one but herself. Two souls lost in the fog of Skyhold's rot trying to navigate what it really means to live by one's own convictions. Female Trevelyan/Sera. AU.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Inquisitor/Sera, Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Sera/Female Trevelyan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>After Midnight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>after midnight</strong>
</p><p>
  <em>under blue moon</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>The counter of the bar was wet and smooth, a pristine and polished wood that had been waxed one too many times. It was as if whoever had the responsibility of buffing it wanted to erase the past from its unique grooves and dips. I don’t know why. Even in the classiest of establishments, a bar was the epoch of human debauchery.</p><p>In some distant point in the past, I’m sure some giddy college aged idiot had stood upon this surface and broke their neck from one miscalculated swivel of their hourglass shaped hips. The thought made me chuckle. I always did appreciate finding humor in the folly of mankind. I took a sip from my drink and tried to suck the taste out of my tongue. </p><p>“Well, then. What did you do this time?” </p><p>Condensation from my glass was gathering in the palm of my hand, sliding over my fingers like tiny rivulets of unspoken truth. Dorian took my silence as an opening for him to order a drink from the bartender. </p><p>Really, all of this was just another chance for me to lose myself in my head. The alcohol was making it harder for my brain to try and articulate one damn sentence to send to my fuzzy mouth. Dorian settled on his usual fruity cocktail. My cousin could be so obnoxiously gay sometimes; I wanted to punch him in his stupid face.</p><p>My drink shifted in my hand and I realized it was empty. A lapse in memory, I don’t even remember bringing it up to my mouth. Was I that fucked up?</p><p>“I broke up with her.”</p><p>“Ah, that charming little elf girl I warned you about?” Dorian swiveled his drink around in an uneasy hand and then tilted his glass forward to observe it, “I told him no cherries.”</p><p>“Dorian. Can you focus for once in your gay life?” I hailed the bartender for another drink even though I knew I shouldn’t have. This night was going to end in trouble. I could already feel it. “I just said I broke up with my girlfriend.”</p><p>Dorian shrugged with all the ambivalence of a shallow, teenage girl. “Ah, yes. Your one true love, was it? Or is it the other way around? You were her one true love.”</p><p>“Stop being such a dick.“</p><p>“Ha, have you forgotten how smitten she was with you? How she thought she had captured that stone cold, cracked and blackened mess you like to refer to as your heart?” He poised his drink before his lips; “She tried her hardest in breaking it open, didn’t she? An ice pick, her weapon of choice.” He took a nice, long and deep sip, “And look at what it got her. A mouth full of putrid, black blood.” As he set his drink down on the bar, he inhaled deeply, “So, how did you do it? Take her on some romantic date so she didn’t feel too bad about the split? I know your style. Make them think they’re in love with you and then fuck them up with your head games.”</p><p>“Fuck you, Dorian. I didn’t ask you to come out here tonight for your faux psychoanalytical bullshit.”</p><p>“Good point, I should start charging you, even if you are family. I’ve spent enough time in therapy. Dare I say it; I should open my own practice.” Dorian threw his head back in raucous laughter and I could feel my nails just sinking into his throat. Vaguely, I remembered us being in this same place two months prior. He said I should have known the relationship was over when I stopped caring about cutting my nails.</p><p>“You should. Out of your ass. Cause you <em>ARE</em> one.” I snapped, hastily grabbing my drink and tried to curb the urge to down it all in one go. “We went out for coffee … at that café she used to like to take me to.”</p><p>“You are horrible.” Dorian sipped his drink and whipped his neck around so that it cracked. Disgusting. “Soiling memories of yourself left and right so she ends up hating you, hm?”</p><p>“That girl could never hate anyone.” I muttered as I bit the smooth, rounded edge of my glass. My teeth clinked against its surface. “Well, she could. But she’s way too soft. I mean, she’s crazy. But soft.”</p><p>“Always the quiet ones.” Dorian mused, “How many have you had?”</p><p>“This is my third.”</p><p>“Have you eaten anything?”</p><p>I shrugged my shoulders; dismissive of the questions he was trying to use to fill the silence. What could my cousin possibly say to me that I already hadn’t heard before?</p><p>This was just another one of my many failed relationships, another broken and creaky ship that I had released from my shaking hands into a bottomless crevice of time. These were familiar, yet murky waters. Deep, hard, cold… black. I could feel my esophagus pushing up against the back of my throat. Maybe it was time I threw up.</p><p>I looked down at my hand, ready to bring the glass up to my lips again. It took me a minute to realize that Dorian had confiscated my drink. I scowled in irritation. I wasn’t a child. Even if he was three years older than I was, I didn’t need him parenting me on the finer intricacies of inebriation. I would have enough when I said I had enough.</p><p>Dorian observed the way the way that I was swaying on my stool. He raised a curious eyebrow, although I knew he was far from amused. “…Shall I call Bull to come and get us?” </p><p>“No! <strong>No</strong>.”</p><p>I didn’t need to get carted around like some drunken teenager who didn’t know their limits. I swallowed past the lump in my throat and wished my stomach would settle. I only drank on an empty stomach because of old bad habits… and in my current state; they were shining through at full force.</p><p>What reason did I have to subjugate myself to drunken melancholy? I was the one who had ended the relationship. Why the hell should I be the one getting fucked up? Maybe because the only thing I could remember from the entire day was the subtle change in Merrill’s facial expressions as my words snipped the red thread she had tried to tie between our wrists.</p><p>Her tea had long gone cold and I had kept my eyes low, buried deep into the last remaining dregs of my coffee. I wanted to lose myself in its blackness, have it swallow me whole so I wouldn’t have to look at her face as I shoved her heart down my throat.</p><p>Her bottom lip worried as she took a deep, stuttering breath. When Merrill spoke, the blood rushing in my ears drowned her out. My heart was a sickening thud in her chest, each thump threatening to break through her ribcage. I would break free of the human carcass, destroying the life of yet another person who had come to know me. </p><p>Eventually she rose from her seat, slipped a ten-dollar bill underneath the plate with the uneaten cake we were supposed to share. She brushed past me, wordlessly, and my eyes drifted toward the singular imprint of mauve lipstick on the white porcelain teacup. I stared down at my own empty cup of coffee, but I felt no remorse.</p><p>
  <em>I was just a thought, wasn’t I?</em>
</p><p>I didn’t have enough dignity to even answer that question for her. I let her leave, just another person that had fallen hopelessly in love with me, only to be scarred by my fuck ups. They say it’s inevitable… that we will always hurt another human being. But, not in the way that I do it. At one point in my life, I cared too much. Now? I don’t care at all. I’d rather keep people in my heart, keep my words to myself. That way, I’ll know you’ll suffocate when I’m gone.</p><p>“I’m calling Bull.“</p><p>I groaned and rested my head on the bar. Dorian’s palm was like a heavy weight of truth on the back of my head.</p><p>"Yeah, she’s fucked up again.”</p><p>“Am not.” I mumbled.</p><p>Dorian wove his fingers between my tangled curls, before returning his fingers to his glass and began drumming an uneven tune, “She just broke up with the current love of her life. She needs support for her dyke drama. How soon can you get here?”</p><p>“It isn’t dyke drama!” I snapped, blanching on the taste of vomit that lingered in the back of my mouth. I wanted to push my hand into Dorian’s stupid fucking face or punch him. Bull didn’t deserve to see me like this.</p><p>We broke up because Merrill couldn’t understand the difference between what love actually was, and the false existence that she cultivated with me. A false fantasy that left her reaching up into the thick curls of my messed up hair, pulling tightly and forcefully. It was as if she were starved for my entire existence. She believed in me while I was still with her. She gave me the world, gave up her world for <em>me</em>. In return, I bit through her sternum and clutched her rapidly beating and love sick heart in fangs born of rage, of anger. Deceit. </p><p>It started when I begin smoking again. I told her it wasn’t my job to protect her, to constantly defend her against every stupid injustice that came her way. My relationships had always been highly unstable, even when I thought my time with her would be different. I would get drunk just so I had the courage to ask her why she would get mad over such stupid shit. The world doesn’t bow at the heels of a few kids screaming about injustice. You need to live in the real world. Understand that what you want to change will continue to affect the generation beyond you and whatever is left to come. </p><p>I stole my drink back from Dorian and downed it while he was hailing the bartender for our check. It burned going down. An acidic burp erupted from the back of my throat and I firmly clamped my hand over my mouth. I needed to make a little trip to the bathroom, fast.</p><p>I stumbled off my stool and I could have sworn I saw Dorian shaking his head and muttering something under his breath as I left for the bathroom. My bag slapped against my bare thigh, the black vinyl was sticky and wet. Probably drenched in water and alcohol. My feet hurt as I shuffled along, on uncomfortable palm woven sole wedges, to the back of the restaurant. I hated summer. The fashion was abhorrent.</p><p>I slammed through the door and vomit went everywhere but where it should have. Up my nose, down my wrist, on the sides of the toilet bowl. I didn’t even care who heard me retching my guts up all over the place. I didn’t even care about who had to see and clean up this mess when I left the place. Selfish asshole as always.</p><p>I don’t even know how I had the ability to flush the toilet and wash my hands. Dorian was waiting for me outside of the bathroom when I was finally done puking up my shame. He took me by the wrist, wrinkling his nose up in disgust at the sight of me, and pulled me through the bar and out into the warm, humid summer air. Bull was already outside, the lights of his Grand Cherokee blinding my tired eyes. The bass from his sound system was shaking the ground beneath my feet. </p><p>“Looking a little worse for wear, Boss.” Was his nonchalant greeting.</p><p>I cursed under my breath, threw open the door to the backseat of his jeep, and promptly passed out in the seat with my legs still hanging out into the street. </p>
<hr/><p>I don’t understand the highways in this city. One minute you’re removed from poorly paved roads and darkened streets, shitty tarred and potholed roads that sag underneath the weight of the poor and despondent people that traverse them. And then suddenly overhead, bursting and bright canopies of green that come to a full flourish in the spring. I can see the stars fading into the slowly darkening sky as we drive away from the epicenter of the city. </p><p>I’m laying in the backseat, short enough to lie out comfortably. My feet are tucked into the grove of the door and I’m losing feeling in my right arm from where my nerves are being pushed up and compressed by the seat.</p><p>Dorian is playing that shitty <em>The xx</em> album again. It’s background music against the whipping wind that we cleave through on our drive through the mountains. The cargo in Bull’s trunk shifts behind my seat, and I press my face into the cold seat. My head hurts. Bull and Dorian are talking about something—probably me—so I turn into the seat and listen to the sounds of my gurgling stomach. I hope my stomach enjoys digesting my organs for dinner. </p><p> “Aeron? You alive back there?” Dorian asks as I shift positions in the backseat again. </p><p>“Unfortunately.” I replied, “Why didn’t you guys just throw me off the piers and leave me to my misery?”</p><p>“She’s charming after a night of binge drinking, isn’t she?” Dorian directed the question to Bull, who merely chuckled in acknowledgement. I rolled over as Dorian began to speak again, “I saw your phone by the way.”</p><p>“I dropped it on my way to the bar.” I groaned at the thought of how badly I had smashed my screen earlier on the night. "Three nigori sake’s will do that to you.”</p><p>“Oh, yes. She’s done.” Bull hissed in sympathy, “Bad night indeed.”</p><p>I shrugged, “It’s whatever. I’ll have to tolerate having a crackhead phone for awhile. Where is it?"</p><p>"Dorian's gained a certain fondness for women's fashion. I think your purse suits him perfectly, Boss." Bull teased as Dorian slapped his shoulder. </p><p>"Like hell it does. That bag was two hundred. Too cheap for his expensive and profound tastes." </p><p>"Bougie." Dorian muttered as he tossed my clutch into the backseat and it thumped against my back and landed on the floor. </p><p>"You really wanna die." I turned around to pick it up and tucked it underneath me. The world was still uneven when I sat up, so I lay my head back down and closed my eyes, "Time?"</p><p>"Just after two." Bull stifled a yawn with the back of his hand.</p><p>"Don't you have class to teach?" Dorian asked.</p><p>Bull shrugged, "Its a late one, down at the community college. Besides, this is college algebra. Do you really think anyone willingly shows up to such a shitshow of a class so early on Saturday morning?" </p><p>"But you <em>LOVE</em> your job, Bull." I muttered sarcastically.</p><p>"No, what I like to see is when the light bulb goes off before I have to put in any work.” Bull answered as the car slowed down at the next intersection. We turned down another dark road lined with Stepford wives-esque housing. A large pothole in the middle of the road jostled me out of my seat and both Bull and Dorian cursed for me. </p><p>“That’s all right. I don’t need my face.” I muttered from the floor. Was my nose bleeding?</p><p>“Why didn’t you strap her in?”</p><p>“With those hips and that ass?” Dorian asked, “You’d have better luck strapping a thong onto a boulder.”</p><p>“I’m going to punch you in your fucking face.” I snarled, pushing myself up off the floor and glaring at my cousin from behind Bull’s chair, “Are we almost there?”</p><p>“Just a bit.” Bull glanced my way, “Sit back and relax. You look like you need it..”</p><p>“She doesn't know how to do that. Really, I think its time we give Vivienne a call, don’t you?”</p><p>I heard Bull shiver audibly at the mention of my best friend’s name. He grumbled something under his breath that sounded like some sort of vague agreement to Dorian’s suggestion. The car slowed down and then jerked awkwardly as we turned into his driveway. Dorian took to opening the front door to the house while Bull pulled me from the backseat and carried me bridal style away from the car.</p><p>You know you can see the stars out where Iron Bull lives? While I’m this drunk, they kind of look like fiery flowers sailing through an endless purple ocean. Floating on the surface, never really knowing what lies beneath. It kind of reminds me of wading through water. Diving in and being pulled back up to float above the waters edge because you’re too buoyant to sink. I feel like I'm floating, the liquor making me overheat.  The stars and me, both of us swimming in the dark sea of the Milky Way. I wonder if they feel like I feel: aimless, wandering… lost.</p><p>Bull’s arms give way and I think I’m falling now. My body feels like its being pulled apart and pushed together. Push in, spew out. Still floating, still lost. Dorian’s voice is like warm milk being poured over the grey mass of my brain, comforting when everything is lost. When I’m lost… when I’m …</p><p>My cell phone buzzes by my head and I wake up on my back in the middle of a sparsely furnished room. I’m sweaty and my throat hurts. Why the hell isn’t a window open to let any air into this stuffy ass room?</p><p>As my senses roll back into a functioning state, it takes me a minute to realize that that’s not my cell phone ringing; it’s Bull’s bed hitting the wall from the room opposite mine. Dorian yelps like a small child and I grit my teeth in disgust. Could they wait until I’m out of their proximity before they start fucking like dick-obsessed rabbits?</p><p>I pushed myself up on shaky elbows, like a newborn calf struggling to walk. Everything smells stale… and of puke. I peered over the side of the bed and dry heave when I catch sight of the bucket that was placed there. …So much puke, I thought my esophagus would invert itself and pull my stomach out of my abdomen along with my entire series of entrails. God, damn. How as I even alive?</p><p>There were three empty water bottles discarded carelessly on the floor and another lukewarm bottle of lemon flavored seltzer just waiting for me to grab it from the nightstand. An abrupt scream of—<em>fuck yes</em>—from Dorian, coincides with the sizzling sound of carbonation being released from the bottle. Fuck yes, indeed.</p><p>I don’t bother with trying to remember how I got here. This isn’t the first time I’ve gotten so fucked up that they spare me the details of how the night ended and we just continue on with life as is. We’re each allotted our own time to fall apart, mine just happens to be now.</p><p>I slip on my shoes, cursing as the coarse material scrapes against the souls of my already sore feet. My head is throbbing and I need air. Stumbling through the living room and past Bull’s room, I make sure to slam the front door of his house to let him and Dorian know that I’m leaving.</p><p>The sun is blistering and I can feel it frying my skin to well done perfection. I don’t even care to think about what I’m doing as I pull my sunglasses from out of my bag, stumble down the street and head for the bus that will bring me back home. I should probably call a cab… keyword, probably.</p><p>Normal people, the ones with normal lives, are already up and about. And I join them, one in the same. In the space between dusk and dawn, there is an eerie silence that illuminates the world. I see the sun as something bright and dumb, an atomic bomb pushed up by the hands of hungry, desperate humans. I imagine something pops. Like, inside your brain. An aneurysm. Blood bubbles from broken vessels. Rushing, squirting into the sky and splattering on the pavement in human shaped forms. </p><p>That’s how I view people in the morning. Everyone is scuttling around like bipedal roaches. They all think they know what they’re doing… they all think where they’re going is important. Of course it is important. For the moment, at least. Everything is always so important that they have to rush to get it done. Do it while all is still fresh in their mind. They rush forward with menial tasks so that they can forget the pain sitting on the dirty, murky floors of their barely furnished homes. But, I think pain is more important. Grand, nebulous pain.</p><p>As I stumble down the hill, I pull my phone from my bag. Its even more endearing with its cracked—shattered—screen. I can barely swipe my thumb across the glass without slicing open the skin. A euphemism for my life. I reach the bus stop and see that the next bus won’t arrive for another half an hour. Glancing down at my phone, I sigh. Five texts from mom and a missed call. I’ll be home soon.</p><p>I tell myself that I’m only alive so that one day, I might dream again. There was a time in my life when my mother’s word was golden and I didn’t need to constantly search for a purpose to hold on. I find that my coffee has become bitter, I need two packets of brown sugar and a generous helping of vanilla almond milk to bog it down. It’s watered down by my inconsistent thoughts, the indescribable feeling of what I sacrificed when I stayed.</p><p>I told Dorian about it… about everything. He was the one that persuaded me to stay after my mother tried to tell me to go away. She would be fine. Medical science was adequate enough to take care of her condition and yet, I still worried. I chain smoked my way through the wait for the bus. Had I made a mistake in choosing to disobey my mother’s word? Everything is so convoluted here. Gritty and dirty. Waxy filth that covers the walls, or your eyes. </p><p>It’s funny that as you get older, you begin to truly understand your parent’s flawed morality and inevitable mortality. I had been standing with my mother in the darkness of our basement when she told me she was sick. I just stared at her, watched her eyes crinkle into her brilliant smile. The one I remembered from when I was a child—when she used to brag about us to all her friends and family members. Her proud smile. She told me everything would be fine. The medication that her doctor had prescribed would be enough. It would be hard, but she was getting older. Things change. She changed. I was supposed to leave. But I stayed… I had to stay. My mother told me that I should go away because she knew that this city was slowly killing me. She told me that I needed to go away and change who I was. I was so angry, so violent. But, I didn’t care. This was my mom we were talking about. I was her baby—her road dog as she used to call me. I had to stay here. </p><p>I wondered… what is the purpose of life if all we’re doing is fighting against the unknown? Fighting to prolong our existence and escape our impending death. People say the point of life is survival, but what is the point in living when you know at the end of everyday, you’re going to die? It’s like a fucked up Valentine. You give your heart to the world and it gives you nothing back but putrid disease.</p>
<hr/><p>When I step off the bus and onto my block, I feel my shoulders come up around my ears. The noise, the stale air—yeah, this is home all right. I guess some things you can't run away from. This place will always be in me, somewhere.</p><p>Muscle memory takes me three houses down and to the left. Same old, same old. My legs are like lead as I try and pull them up the ugly concrete steps of my house and throw myself through the door. Just as I rummage around in my bag to look for my keys, loud and raucous laughter floats out of the window to my right. I groan, wishing for hell to swallow me whole right there. My aunt is here.</p><p>You see… when my mother and her siblings get together; they like to tell the same stories over and over again. Every two or three years, some medical crisis with my grandparents will bring the family into some makeshift solidarity again. They’ll sit together, nursing drinks that smell so strong; they rip the color out of the fading walls of our living room and paint the room a disgusting golden brown.</p><p>I think the stories make them feel younger or something. Like they believe their youth wasn’t a fading thirty-year-old dream. That their brains haven’t atrophied into a sloppy, grey mess sitting dully inside their dented and slightly cracked skulls. That all the drugs they pumped into their system were just fake tabs of courage that brought them the same stories I’m just beginning to create. I feel like when they tell these stories in my presence, they’re intruding on my present and it reminds them of everything they used to be and no longer are.</p><p>I’ll make a snide comment. Something that has my mother spitting her drink out onto the matted, blue carpet and shakes her meaty shoulders with raucous laughter. Her younger brother always joins in and they collapse into a drunken heap on the chair. What I said wasn’t really all that funny. But they’re drunk, and everything becomes grand and exaggerated when you’re that gone. Sometimes, if he’s with me, I'll usually make side comments to Dorian as he shakes his head at how drunk they are. He’ll lament killing himself, as he stays rooted to his seat out of politeness. Yet, he’s really doing it to preserve their slowly fading pride. </p><p>Mom perks up the minute she sees me, opens her mouth as if to admonish me, but then pauses. My shoulders sag underneath the weight of her gaze, so I turn away from her and unlace my wedges. My aunt, however, is full of herself and takes the first blow.</p><p>“If this isn’t a sight I’ve seen before.” She begins, just as I turn around. “And just where were you last night?”</p><p>“Let me guess.” My mom interjected before I could speak, “With Dorian and Bull? Like always?”</p><p>“Yeah.” Was my noncommittal reply as I picked my shoes off the floor, began to walk out of the room, and leave this conversation as soon as it had started.</p><p>“Well it would have been nice if you let someone know where you were, don’t you think?”</p><p>“Yeah.” I said again, leaning in to kiss my mother on the cheek and head upstairs to my bedroom.</p><p>“Aeron <em>Trevelyan</em>.”</p><p>“Tired, ma. I’ll talk to you later.” I replied, effectively ending things at the base of the stairs and began my ascent.</p><p>I could hear my aunt say something to my mother, but I didn’t care to stick around and banter with her. I was a loaded gun when I wanted to be, but this wasn’t the time or place right now. I all but kicked in my door, dropped my bag and shoes on the floor and closed it behind me. The air conditioner was still running and was a welcome reprieve from the sticky, hot air that simmered outside my window.</p><p>My phone beeped. A message from Dorian that I would check later. I wrestled my way out of my clothes, stripped down to just my underwear and got underneath my sheets. I would face my mother’s harsh—concerned—words later. Maybe get up and get some food with Dorian and Bull once they were finished fucking one another for the eighteenth time that day.</p><p>But for now, it was my time. And my body craved sleep.</p><p>Nothing more but sleep.</p>
<hr/><p>When I mentioned leaving home, everyone lost their god damn mind. I felt like there was never enough time to see anyone, to be with anyone. Every word that came out of my mouth was analyzed, pushed down into the ground at knifepoint. Well, what do you mean by that? Is that how you really feel about us? You won’t miss us, will you?</p><p>I wanted to convey that I would miss them. But my heart wasn’t in this place anymore. I was running, trying to escape the pull of my hometown by drowning out my senses in alcohol and drugs. I don’t think anyone really understood what I meant when I said I wanted to leave this place. It wasn’t them… it was just … this was my ticket out of here. If I didn’t take it now, when else would I have gone?</p><p>Mom was beyond herself, of course. She was bragging to everyone in the family. Her daughter—no one else—<em>her </em>daughter would be the first person in the family to go on to graduate school. She couldn’t have been prouder, considering what an epic fuck up my older sister had been. (Mom doesn’t say it, but it’s pretty much an unspoken truth in this family). Then mom … well … she gets sick. And I … I can’t function. Because I can’t go away when I know my mother is alone, all alone and trying to take care of herself.</p><p>I considered withdrawing my application and acceptance almost immediately. I remember being drunk and close to tears one night—(I’m always crying)—when I told Bull and Dorian that I didn’t want to move anymore. In return, they told me that I was making a huge mistake.</p><p>What they didn’t understand was that I had to stay behind and be a faithful daughter. I had to make sure my mother was all right. Nearly all of my friends have horrible relationships with their parents. And while I’m not exempt from this rule—as I don’t speak to the asshole known as my sperm donor—the one thing is, I could always count on my mom. Always, always, always. And that’s why I’m still here. I’m here. For her.</p><p>After I explaining my reasoning to Dorian and telling him how bad things really were, he changed his tune. He said that maybe I should stay here and help her out. I couldn’t depend on my irresponsible sister to do anything. Hell, I can’t even remember the last time she called my mother to check on her.</p><p>And so I gave up on graduate school for the time being. The department was disappointed; they had <em>so </em>been looking forward to have such a distinguished student such as I to join their ranks. I tend to look at that as a half-truth. In all honesty, I think I was there to fulfill part of a diversity quota. My grades weren’t <em>that </em>great. When my mother huffed about wasting such a wonderful opportunity, I shut her down and told her that I was staying to make sure she was all right. That was the only answer anyone really needed.</p><p>…Speaking of my mother, I can hear someone calling me.</p><p>My mother. Her voice is a distant warbling against the backdrop of my distant dream. Her voice increases in volume. It’s sharp, its loud, and grating on the ears. Not kind to any who wish to sleep through her incessant yelling.</p><p>I wake just as her shoe thuds against the back of the door. I know she doesn’t want me for anything. All mothers work on the same clock. Their child is asleep? Might as well wake them up and make them do this asinine thing that could have waited for at least another hour or two. As I stumble out of my room, I find mom standing at the top of the stairs, hands on her hips as she worries her bottom lip with her teeth.</p><p>“How long are you going to sleep for? What the hell did you do last night?” She asks, tilting her head at me.</p><p>I stare at her, blink my eyes twice and sigh. Why is she even asking me such basic ass questions right now? Does she really wanna know how I threw up for half of the night and spent the better part of my morning listening to Dorian and Bull fucking? I blow a piece of stray hair out of my face, “Underwater basket weaving.”</p><p>“What?” She questions as if I lost my goddamn mind. I already have.</p><p>“Nothing, ma.” I look back at my room, “Why are you even waking me up right now?”</p><p>“I made breakfast.” It’s not statement; it’s an order to come downstairs and to stop being an embarrassing, hung-over mess. “And your <em>aunt </em>is here from Haven. Act like you have some manners and come downstairs and talk to her.”</p><p><em>Talk</em> to her means to go downstairs and listen to her gloat about some stupid thing or another. I always question forced interaction. If I wanted to speak with my aunt, I would have done so when I walked through the door earlier this morning. I stifle the urge to roll my eyes and sigh. Fine. Fine, I’ll do this for her this morning.</p><p>“Let me make myself decent, first.” I say.</p><p>I think I hear my mother mutter—<em>something you seem incapable of doing—</em>as she descends down the stairs. Well, good morning to you too. What was I here for again? I stumble my way through a shower and pull on some type of clothing halfway between lounging and presentable and began my slow descent down the stairs so that I can <em>entertain </em>people I really don’t give a shit about.</p><p>They sit at the kitchen table. Laughing. Always laughing. I’m tired of hearing them laugh. I’m tired in general. Even if I didn’t drink a barrel of sake last night, no matter how much sleep I get, no matter how much coffee I drink, I am always tired.</p><p>My mother mentioned breakfast. There are pancakes on the stove. My eyes catch a batch of bananas on the counter. They’re dented and bruised on one side, black carvings in their yellow skin. They didn’t look like that when I bought them yesterday. Its funny, you know how you always look for the <em>BEST</em> produce whenever you go to the grocery store? But that perfection never stays for long. It fades, shows its true colors. Why do we search for perfection in this world when it is filled to the brim with imperfect creations?</p><p>“<em>Aeron</em>.”</p><p>Oh. I guess they’re talking to me now. My aunt is rising from the table and it looks like she’s going to leave. Or something. I don’t know.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“Show your aunt to the guest room. She’s staying for the weekend.” My mother instructs me. I cast her a look of disbelief and she almost glares at me. Fine. FINE. I will <em>be </em>the obedient daughter. Fuck, I’m twenty six years old. I’m getting too old for this shit. Doesn’t this woman know where the guest room is? She’s stayed with us before. What the fuck?</p><p>We head back upstairs and I can hear my aunt tutting at something disapprovingly. Fuck her. Old bat. I open the door to the guest room, which is opposite my bedroom and gesture grandly at the room that looks like it was decorated by a blind old woman. “Behold. Your chambers.” I deadpanned.</p><p>My aunt turns to look at me, “You know, Aeron, you could be a little easier with your mother considering her <em>condition</em>right now.” What did <em>this </em>woman know about what my mother was going through right now? I stared at her, but knew it would be better to bite my tongue. My aunt wasn’t worth it. This woman didn’t give two shits what happened to her sister.</p><p>“Okay.” Was the only reply I could manage and gestured again toward the guest room, “You're right. I’m going to go <em>check </em>on her to make sure she’s taking her medicine.”</p><p>My aunt sneered, “Aren’t you such a good daughter? Why, if I had my own children, I would have <em>loved </em>to have one such as caring and thoughtful as you.” When was this woman going to leave? She disappeared into the guest room after muttering something about washing the filth from her travels from her body. Doesn't matter how much she scrubbed. A hot bath can’t cleanse a chronic case of bitch.</p><p>I massaged my temples as the door closed and rounded back down the stairs to go check on my mother. I wasn’t even going to bother and ask her why she was letting her sister stay with us. Probably something about she was having issues with her <em>fourth </em>husband and needed a place to escape while they figured out their martial discord. I was <em>never </em>getting married. Fuck, I wasn’t dating for awhile either.</p><p>My mother was washing dishes from breakfast when I came into the kitchen again. I sat down at the table and noticed she had left me a plate of pancakes as well as a steaming cup of coffee. …Thanks, ma.</p><p>“I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.” She scrubbed at a pan; “My counts were a little low on my last visit. So…”</p><p>“Do you want me to go with you?” I asked her. This wasn’t even new at this point.</p><p>“If you don’t mind.” She placed a pan in the dish rack and started in on another plate.</p><p>“I don’t.” I watched the pancakes droop under the weight of my fork. I don’t even know why she asks me if I mind going with her. She knows the answer is always going to be yes.</p><p>“Good.” My mother flicked the excess water off her hands as she finished washing the last of the dishes and patted her hands dry on the dishtowel, “I’m going to go relax for awhile. You eat up, make sure to clean up when you’re done.”</p><p>“Right.” I muttered as she walked out the kitchen and left me alone.</p><p>I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out my phone as soon as I heard the TV turn on in the living room. The message from Dorian: <em>Sorry if we woke you. </em>Right. Sure they were. I rolled my eyes and placed my phone face down as I resumed eating. I hear my mother coughing from the living room. I hate that cough.</p><p>Sometimes I ask myself if I made the right decision staying here. I could have been three thousand miles away from all of this bullshit. Getting my degree. Doing something for myself, being <em>happy</em>. But, no. When I think about things logically, I know this is what I had to do. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. I guess… things could always change in the future. My mother could get better. My sister could stop being an assfuck. I could stop being so angry all the time. But, no. They don’t like change. It’s what keeps things constant. People <em>like </em>constants.</p><p>I sip on my coffee and let my head loll back and hit the wooden frame of the chair.</p><p>Just another day, Aeron.</p><p>Just another <em>fucking </em>day.</p>
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